Apple shoots down rumor about pro audio team “decimation”

Apple says the team is alive and well—and "hard at work" on the next Logic Pro.

Apple officially shot down a rumor about the demise of its internal pro audio group in a response to a concerned user. Music marketing head Xander Soren responded to an e-mail on Monday, originally sent to Apple CEO Tim Cook, saying the pro audio team is safe and sound, according to a copy seen by MacRumors. Soren added the team is "hard at work" on the next version of Logic Pro.

Apple's commitment to its pro users has been increasingly called into question since the release of Final Cut Pro X in mid-2011. Numerous users of Apple's previous versions of Final Cut Pro were put off by the changes and perplexed by the number of useful features seemingly dropped from the new release. Combined with Apple's lengthy gap between major Mac Pro hardware releases, pro users have begun to loudly voice their concerns about Apple's commitment to their sliver of the market.

This sentiment, no doubt, is what fed a recent rumor claiming Apple's pro audio team had been "decimated," according to sources speaking to Pro Tools Expert. The sources claimed Apple's European team was down to two employees with no replacements in sight, and that the "next big audio application from Apple will be for the iPad."

But Apple was apparently having none of it. Like Cook's rebuttal to an e-mail inquiry about the death of the Mac Pro, Soren responded to a user's e-mail about the future of the pro audio group. "As the lead for our music creation apps, I always want to hear what our users are thinking," Soren wrote. "I want to assure you the team is still in place and hard at work on the next version of Logic Pro."

As noted by MacRumors, the last major Logic Pro release came in mid-2009. The app and its live-performance companion MainStage 2 were moved to the Mac App Store last year, while Logic Express and Soundtrack Pro were left behind. Still, the software was otherwise left untouched. Perhaps it's time for that long-rumored Logic X to make an appearance?

I'm a longtime professional Logic user and I honestly don't feel any pressing need for a major update. I admire Apple's restraint from pushing out overhauls just to please the types who complain about their interfaces getting "boring" or "stale".

I believe this will be the first Apple program already in the Mac App Store to get an update, so I'm really interested to see what Apple does. Will you have to purchase it as a separate product from the existing version of Logic? Will it be a free update if you already bought Logic 8 on the Mac App Store? Or something else? Maybe they'll finally implement paid updates because they finally see the need?

As a long term Logic user I hope this is true. The only major alternative DAW I haven't tried is Pro Tools, and Logic beats them all IMO. What is the Ableton Live obsession these days? It is half arsed compared to Logic (and dare I say it, Cubase). I suppose the tempo/pitch shifting is pretty nifty, but the clip and arrangement workflow is woeful.

I believe this will be the first Apple program already in the Mac App Store to get an update, so I'm really interested to see what Apple does. Will you have to purchase it as a separate product from the existing version of Logic? Will it be a free update if you already bought Logic 8 on the Mac App Store? Or something else? Maybe they'll finally implement paid updates because they finally see the need?

We can talk all we want about Apple's words. But it's not disputable that they've already left the Pro market by their actions. FCP X, the lack of Mac Pro updates, killing off the Xserve, the removal of professional legacy interfaces on their hardware and software, and the inexorable iOSification of OS X have all been roads to hell.

Practically speaking, as someone who has a large library of digital tape-based footage and ongoing projects, the debut of FCPX and the removal of FCP 7 from the marketplace and from ongoing support meant that I had to sell off my Mac/FCP-based workflow for a Windows/Avid workflow.

When Walter Murch, your biggest cheerleader in Hollywood says, "If I have any argument with Final Cut Pro X, it's that word 'Pro' in there," then you know you've screwed up. Unfortunately, it's pretty clear that Apple isn't listening.

First, the overpriced and underpowered MacPro forced us to go PC. Second, Final Cut Pro desaster forced us to Avid. Third, with Pro Tools and Live, I'm a happy camper.

The only thing left going for Apple are their "best Windows laptops", my beloved 15" MacBook Pros. Apple is so entrenched with regular consumers and the big profits that can be generated through them that I think professional media people are no longer regarded as a worthwhile customer group.

Or maybe they were actually "decimated" and suffered a 10% reduction in staff like the original meaning.

Sometimes I feel like the goal of my fellow English speakers is to ruin the specific and helpful meanings of each and every word and make the whole language into forms of "ermahgurd!".

And then after you ruined the meaning of that word you need to come up with a new word to replace it. So now you have to use "actually" instead of "literally" because "literally" now mean means "1:to be taken in a strict sense, 2:figuratively".

This Apple's fault really. This whole secrecy thing is all well and good for hardware and we all know how well that works, but software is different. It's meant to be ever changing and updated regularly. We should be getting yearly updates of Logic. The only reason I can see why they are taking so long is because they are completely rewriting Logic from scratch and when FCPX came out they had to go back to the drawing board.

The issue is that Apple is not the only game in town, which is fine, I'm sure Apple never wanted to get into the pro software business to begin with but they had no choice. Adobe refused to port their software to OSX and and AVID at the time was a big proprietary system with dedicated hardware. At the time Apple needed to gain users to its burgeoning platform. Without software the operating system isn't worth anything. Jobs was never into games so that was out, instead Apple decided to focus on the pro market where it could gain users, especially since they already had years of pro users under their belt in the print and media market which even at the time they were on the cusp of loosing as well. Even at its most expensive Apple always offered their pro apps at bargain bin prices compared to the competition. So now you have Cubase/Nuendo, Live, Pro Tools, Studio One, on the platform and other daw developers making their way to the platform where before OSX would have been the last one to the party. So in that respect Apple won. They got the 3rd party support hey desired from all the major pro app players and they still get to sell their hardware. All they have to do is drop a release of their pro app now and then at dirt cheap prices and that will keep 3rd party developers from jumping ship in the near future.

The pro apps for Apple are about leverage, Apple has no interest in the pro market other than to make sure that there is a pro market in their platform.

The original etymology of the word 'decimated' does come from the Latin term for the punishment in the Legions where one in ten soldiers were executed by their comrades.

But that usage comes from literally thousands of years ago (notice I used 'literally' correctly). The meanings of words often evolve over time, and that's plenty of time. Just perusing the Wiktionary page (hardly definitive, but in this case at least is referenced), there is an example of the article's usage of 'decimated' from the 1850s.

In other words, all of you deniers of language evolution, how about moving to France or the Netherlands. They have councils that protect the language from this kind of evolution. In English, though, we generally allow that words mean what we all recognize them to mean. And those meanings can and often do drift away from the original etymology. Remember, 'ain't' is in the dictionary.

Get over it.

EDIT: Somehow one time I meant to use the word 'decimated', I actually wrote 'definitive'. Don't know why I just noticed, but that must have been confusing to read.

The original etymology of the word 'decimated' does come from the Latin term for the punishment in the Legions where one in ten soldiers were executed by their comrades.

Which is bad enough and quite a bit of shock and awe. Firing one of ten employees though is nothing like that. It's just the difference between killing a tenth of your soldiers and having one of ten people looking for another job.

"Decimating" today suggests other numbers than "one in ten" because what you do to that 10% is much less worse.

I mean, for Apple audio (and video) is and always has been something that was a real seller for their stuff. Even with iOS it's an important thing - how many live performances and CDs are produced using Android or WP7? Or Windows 8?

Just not keeping their staff here or even extending what they're doing means "decimating" in a broader context. Apple is bleeding itself just to lower costs and keep margins artificially high. Apple should *invest* here.

I think Cook is downing Apple. He's a bean counter. iTunes 11 is a bad joke. Everything video and audio (and photos) by Apple is arguably better or worse than the competition, but never as good as it could be coming from a company which has no trouble to spend time and money.

In comparison to what they actually earn everything Apple does is decimated.

Can the pedantry about the meaning of decimated end already? Geez. (expecting downvotes for being annoyed at off topic stupidity)

The guy who actually sent the email had been posting on a thread over at AppleInsider earlier today talking about this. The original rumor that claimed they were down to 2 people was talking about Audio Pro Specialists, which was the name for the marketing group. That group was done away with b/c w/the app being in the store, they aren't worried about making sure it is faced properly at places like Guitar Center. That group went away, but the devs and QA were all still in place and are apparently growing. If you look at Apple job hires, they're somewhere in Germany, where Emagic was originally located.

So that's the whole story. Also ctthoqqua, clearly it IS disputable that Apple has left the pro markets. Your old copy of FCP did not magically stop working the day FCPX was released and about a month later they reversed their plan and made copies of the legacy version available thru their phone ordering. Apple has always been one for cutting ties to the past tho, so yeah, I wouldn't expect a ton of bug fixes on it either. As LPX is not released yet, can't really say that LPX won't satisfy the current pros and hobbyists who are using it.

I think Cook is downing Apple. He's a bean counter. iTunes 11 is a bad joke. Everything video and audio (and photos) by Apple is arguably better or worse than the competition, but never as good as it could be coming from a company which has no trouble to spend time and money.

What's wrong with iTunes 11? I think its awesome. If for nothing more than its faster than iTunes 10. Is it cool to bash anything new that Apple releases? Did I miss the hipster memo?

The original etymology of the word 'decimated' does come from the Latin term for the punishment in the Legions where one in ten soldiers were executed by their comrades.

Which is bad enough and quite a bit of shock and awe...

It was even worse than I made it sound. The legionaries were divided into groups of ten. Not randomly, it would be ten close comrades. Often tentmates. The ten would draw lots, and the loser would be bludgeoned to death by the other nine. Obviously, the ones who died got the worst of it. But even the survivors were traumatized (and it's hard to traumatize a hardened battle veteran). And that was sort of the whole point. The punishment was not just "each of you has a 10% chance of being executed". The punishment was "each of you has a 10% chance of being executed, and the other 90% aren't going to like it very much either".

I think Cook is downing Apple. He's a bean counter. iTunes 11 is a bad joke. Everything video and audio (and photos) by Apple is arguably better or worse than the competition, but never as good as it could be coming from a company which has no trouble to spend time and money.

What's wrong with iTunes 11? I think its awesome. If for nothing more than its faster than iTunes 10. Is it cool to bash anything new that Apple releases? Did I miss the hipster memo?

We're on "The PC Enthusiast's Resource". Do any of us get the hipster memo?

As a Pro Tools user, let me say to Logic fans: Be somewhat thankful your releases are few and far between. You have to get the latest Pro Tools to run it on the latest OS, but the useful new features are hardly there.

I'm a Logic Pro 9 user and I hope the next version doesn't suffer from the "simplify by removing useful features" philosophy that apparently hit FCP X.

Multicast and other features were added back into FCP X. Apple should learn from that lesson and only release Logic X when it is really ready and "fully baked". They should also continue to sell Logic 9 and support it for awhile after Logic X is released.

I hope Apple releases Logic for iPad and has deep integration between Logic running on he iPad and Logic X running on the Mac. And everything is sync'd through iCloud.

I *want* to believe Apple. I really do. I hope it's true. But as a content producer (people who use their machines intensely all day with high resolution input devices like mice and keyboard and lots of screen real estate to manage lots of information), it is really hard not to feel like all the love has gone for the content consumers (people who casually use their devices to do simpler tasks with touch interfaces and smaller screens).

I wonder if I could write a letter to Tim Cook and tell me that my beloved MBP 17 is coming back soon. I hate the 15" I'm using now.

Also ctthoqqua, clearly it IS disputable that Apple has left the pro markets. Your old copy of FCP did not magically stop working the day FCPX was released and about a month later they reversed their plan and made copies of the legacy version available thru their phone ordering.

Normally, this would be a reasonable response. But in the case of FCP it was not a good non-move. At the time FCP was languishing, the rest of the industry was zooming forward into DSLR-based workflows with native H.264 editing and other features that were quickly becoming standard. While the old FCP "did not stop working," it was rapidly left behind and leaving its users in a backward position compared to users on the competing apps. For instance, FCP was very, very late to go 64-bit, resulting in a performance deficit compared to the competition. And none of its shortcomings were addressed in any way by simply putting it back on the market (in a very limited way, btw).

So maybe it didn't stop working, but maintaining the status quo was an inadequate response for the application given the rapidly advancing state of its market at the time.